NOUNS What you need to know! Kindly contributed to the Adult Basic Skills Resource Centre http://www.skillsworkshop.org by Gill Gallagher. g.gallagher@barnsley.ac.uk August 2007. Rs/E2.4 Use punctuation and capitalisation to aid understanding. Ws/E2.4 Use a capital letter for proper nouns (a) understand what is meant by a proper noun (b) understand the purpose of marking proper nouns by an initial capital Rs/E3.3 Use punctuation and capitalisation to aid understanding Ws/E3.3 use punctuation correctly (e.g. capital letters, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks)

A NOUN IS A NAMING WORD cat car house

plane college bed ice-cream

People doctor pilot vet mum teacher

Nouns can also be things that you can’t see – such as emotions. jealousy love anger

These nouns are called ‘common nouns’ These nouns are called ‘common nouns’. They don’t have capital letters at the beginning. But some other nouns are called ‘proper nouns’ and they do have capitals.

People’s names are proper nouns and always start with a capital letter. London Names of places are proper nouns - Barnsley, Leeds, New York, Rome.

Houses of Parliament Hampton Court Palace Names of special buildings are ‘proper nouns’ and have capital letters. Houses of Parliament Hampton Court Palace

December Months of the year and days of the week SPECIAL DAYS Christmas Day Mother’s Day December Months of the year and days of the week

A ‘collective noun’ is the name given to a group of people, objects or animals. A pride of lions A flock of sheep Do you know any more?